Tag Corporate Culture

Entries 3 Total

The False Choice Between Enterprise IT and Startup IT

Apr 16, ’10 1:00 PM

There is much to like in the new book Rework, from the founders of 37signals. The book, geared toward small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs, is a collection of common-sense and (self-described) contrarian views on everything from the work hours necessary to be successful when starting a business…

“Send people home at 5…You don’t need more hours, you need better hours.”

to the need to focus on building your company rather than on external financing or the minuscule odds of making a big payoff someday…

“You need a commitment strategy, not an exit strategy. You should be thinking about how to make your project grow and succeed, not how you’re going to jump ship. If your whole strategy is based on leaving, chances are you won’t get far in the first place.”

Much of the commentary on the book has centered around whether the success of 37signals as an independent, profitable software operation is applicable to the majority of small and internet-focused businesses.

For me, the book is one more data point confirming a theory I have held for sometime; that we are moving toward an environment in which there really are two “camps” of IT professionals (and IT shops). On one extreme are enterprise IT and those within it, and on the other startups and small businesses. As in most tribalism, each extreme is easily painted with incorrect stereotypes, and a false choice is presented between them – you can belong to one camp or the other, but not both. Its easy to look across the chasm at the other side and make little effort to understand their real challenges or what might be learned from them. If an individual moves between camps, it is very likely by leaving the enterprise world for the small-business world, never to look back.

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What Is Your Department’s Brand?

Jun 3, ’09 3:18 PM

Lets start with the word “brand”, which seems to be in greater use than ever before, with much energy expended around “personal branding”, etc.  A quick search yields radically varied definitions of the term, from a declaration that your brand is simply what you say about yourself on as many social networks as possible, repeatedly, until it somehow “sticks”, to the Wikipedia definition that:

A brand is a collection of experiences and associations connected with a service, a person or any other entity.

…which to my mind is much more substantial, lasting, and very close to “reputation.”

What are the experiences and associations that others have of your IT shop? What are the few choice terms that would be repeated by your customers to describe your department? Following are three examples you might be shooting for:

Precision: If your team is known by its precision, it means that you are data-driven in everything that you do, take getting the numbers right very seriously, and show pride in that behavior. In practice it might mean that when you have low confidence in a number, you state as much, rather than blowing smoke through a presentation, regardless of the pressure to do otherwise. It requires double-checking, on your part and all the way down the line. It requires identifying the individuals on your team who exhibit this trait, and figuring out how they can help you set the bar high for others. It requires getting it right a high percentage of the time, but also coming clean when you discover that a prior representation your team made was incorrect.

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Culture Wars

Apr 16, ’09 11:18 AM

No, not of the political variety.  Beyond the mission, vision and values statements, the coffee mugs and the pot-luck lunches, how would your describe your IT Culture?  Who is driving it?

IT Culture Graph

  • Leadership (you):  If staff were asked, would they say that you are actively building a culture around a specific vision you have for the team and the organization?  Would they be able to describe that vision?  Do you have followers within leadership/staff that understand your cultural vision and support you in this effort?  Are you on your own?
  • Rank & File: Is the rank & file culture a blank canvas waiting for you to begin painting, or are you fighting an institutionalized culture that doesn’t match your vision?  Are there so many staff modeling old/negative behaviors that they are overrunning your efforts at the top (tail wagging dog)?  Should you be actively enlisting more followers to assist in this task?
  • Few Specific Individuals: Are there a few specific “informal culture leaders” that staff look to to determine the overall reaction to every new policy or program you roll out?  Are these individuals supporting you, or are they working against you?  How much damage might they be doing?
  • Outside Threats: Is your culture defined primarily by you, and with an appropriate weighing of the outside world?  A little paranoia is normally considered good practice in a competitive marketplace, but has that outside focus become the de-facto culture?   If staff cannot articulate your vision for the type of organization you’d like to build, but can speak at length about negative external reviews or business partner ratings for services provided by IT, you might be in this category.

In my discussions with IT leaders from smaller organizations, one of the most attractive benefits they point to is the ability to build the type of culture they have always wanted to work within.  This is often an etherial thing and hard to quantify, but may include working with individuals with similar levels of passion/energy, personal accountability, challenge, new learnings, work flexibility, and of course the fun quotient.

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